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President Clinton on Wednesday announced several new policies that will
help encourage agencies to make their technologies and practices accessible
to people with disabilities.

He also unveiled a World Wide Web site that will serve as a one-stop
resource for people with disabilities, Access America for People with Disabilities
(www.disAbility.gov).

The executive order calls for federal agencies to hire a total of 100,000
people with disabilities over the next five years. Coming on the 10th anniversary
of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the order builds on the Clinton
administration's efforts to make the federal government a model for making
employment and technology accessible to everyone, according to the White
House.

Each agency must submit a plan to the Office of Personnel Management
by Sept. 25 detailing how they will hire, train and mentor these new employees
and make sure that the technologies are made available so that all of their
accessibility needs are met. Agencies must also use the new accessibility
technologies to develop ways for people with disabilities to work from home
or off-site facilities.

All of this supports the requirements set out in Section 508 of the
Workforce Investment Act of 1998 for agencies to provide accessible information
technology to their employees and customers.

On Tuesday Clinton and Vice President Al Gore issued a memorandum to
agency heads requiring that the Interagency Committee on Disability Research
publish a report identifying priority areas for developing assistive technologies.
Once the ICDR issues the report, agencies are to develop a strategy to put
the technology to use.

A two-year campaign that prompted the Department of Homeland Security to issue its first-ever emergency directive to agencies to shore up cyber defenses appears in part to have been an attempt to spy on U.S. government internet traffic.